Cathy Moriarty

The Bronx Stroke of Luck

Joe Pesci found her at a nightclub in Mount Vernon and sensed that the seventeen-year-old fit into the world of Martin Scorsese. Cathy Moriarty wasn't looking to be an actress. But her face matched the raw aesthetic the director needed for Raging Bull in 1980.

That debut was no bureaucratic formality.

Earned an Oscar nomination for playing Vickie LaMotta with a coolness that unsettled Robert De Niro himself. Critics praised her ability to hold the close-up without blinking. Her sudden success led the industry to try to mold her into the new femme fatale of the 1980s.

In 1981, she filmed Neighbors alongside John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The shoot was chaotic and the box office reception was lukewarm. It was the last sign of normalcy before her personal life completely derailed.

The accident and the silence

In 1982, she was in a car accident that caused serious injuries to her back and neck. The physical aftereffects forced her to slow her work pace just as major offers were piling up on her desk. But physical pain was not the only problem she faced during those years away.

Her marriage to Carmine D'Anna ended in a legal battle over control of her finances and property. Moriarty spent nearly seven years away from the spotlight while trying to recover her health and her fortune. Hollywood can be cruel to actresses who disappear, and many assumed her career was over.

Her recovery was slow and painful.

She returned to the big screen in 1990 with Kindergarten Cop. She was no longer the naive young woman of her debut but a woman with a much deeper voice and an imposing physical presence. She accepted supporting roles in comedies and crime dramas because she needed to earn a living and make up for lost time.

The villain of the 1990s

In 1991, she appeared in Soapdish and proved she could handle dark comedy with the same precision as social drama. Her performance as an ambitious television executive earned her the respect of casting directors again. In 1995, she played Carrigan Crittenden in the film Casper (produced by Steven Spielberg) and made an entire generation of kids know her as the perfect villain.

She agreed to work on Cop Land in 1997 under the direction of James Mangold. In this film she shared scenes with Sylvester Stallone and Harvey Keitel in a testosterone-heavy environment where she asserted her authority effortlessly. Moriarty always had that Bronx energy that no acting academy can teach.

She never again became the undisputed lead.

In 2010, she appeared in The Bounty Hunter as Irene. Seven years later, in 2017, she made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival with her role in Patti Cake$. She played a sick grandmother who smokes nonstop and embodies the failed artistic dreams of heartland America.

In 2021, she appeared in the gothic horror film The Last Thing Mary Saw, directed by Edoardo Vitaletti. During the shoot in New York, the actress worked with a small budget and a young crew that looked to her experience to lend weight to the story. The production premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival and runs 89 minutes.